Category: IT382

Get your business LinkedIn

As stated in previous blog postings, I have been looking to improve the digital marketing strategy of GBK. One social networking platform that I failed to consider however, was LinkedIn.

(Photo Credit: StockMonkeys.com via Compfight cc)
(Photo Credit: StockMonkeys.com via Compfight cc)

Here are some impressive statistics that prove it is one of the best marketing tools out there (Huffington Post, 2014):

  • LinkedIn has over 364 million members in over 200 countries.
  • Professionals are creating their accounts at a rate of more than two new members per second.
  • With over 39 million students it is a great place for recruitment.
  • It has profiles for employees from all the 2013 Fortune 500 companies as well as 94 of the Fortune 100 companies.

Its main purpose is to enhance B2B connections and is considered to be the most professional platform out there, with accounts owned by high flying entrepreneurs, CEO of major organisations, as well as some of the most famous business men and women of our time. Below is a link to Richard Branson’s personal page, who boasts nearly 8 million followers!

(Richard Branson LinkedIn Page - June 2015)
(Richard Branson LinkIn Page – June 2015)

Hershberger (2012) states that LinkedIn provides a prime opportunity to enhance your SEO efforts, improve the perception of your brand by showcasing your business and its employees as experts in their field, as well as allowing you to become a key resource within your online community.

If you’re struggling to set-up a LinkedIn page for your business, why not take a look at this step-by-step guide put together by HubSpot.

There are numerous ways to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool, so I have put together just a few to help you out:

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

LinkedIn unveiled their new ‘Content Marketing Score’ on their LinkedIn Marketing Solutions page, which acts as a recommendation engine that allows you to monitor your impact on your follows through engagement metrics. It also shows you how you compare against you competitors. Another tool they provide is ‘Trending Content’ which ranks the topics that resonate most with specific audiences, allowing you to tailor your content to your target market. Both of these tools are a great example of how LinkedIn can help you to promote your business through their platform, monitoring your performance as you to so. I would thoroughly recommend that you take advantage of these, as a guarantee you competitors will be!

LinkedIn Groups

According to LinkedIn themselves, LinkedIn Groups “provide a place for professionals in the same industry or with similar interests to share content, find answers, post and view jobs, make business contacts, and establish themselves as industry experts.” Furthermore, when you establish yourself within a group, LinkedIn allows you to find influencers and prospects through the filtering option available. This is a great way to put your business on the map by allowing you to influence your particular industry.

In life, when something seems too good to be true, it usually isn’t. But this is not the case for LinkedIn. Cision (2013) do point out though that because it is used by some businesses as an advertising megaphone, you must brace yourself for the slew of of spam coming your way!

Finally, whilst researching for this post, I came across this article by Slutsky (2010) who put forward her argument as to why LinkedIn is here to stay, check it out!

References

Cision, (2013). LinkedIn for Business: Pros & Cons You Should Be Aware Of | Cision. [online] Available at: http://www.cision.com/us/2013/09/pros-and-cons-of-linkedin-for-business/ [Accessed 30 May. 2015].

Hershberger T. (2012) Using Linkedln as a Marketing Tool. ABA Bank Marketing [online]. June 2012;44(5):37. Available from: Business Source Premier, Ipswich, MA. Accessed May 30, 2015.

Slutsky I. (2010) Why LinkedIn is the social network that will never die. Advertising Age [online]. December 6, 2010;81(43):2-23. Available from: Communication & Mass Media Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed May 30, 2015.

How to Write a Successful Blog for your Restaurant.

As explained in previous blog postings, I have been looking to improve the digital marketing strategy for Gourmet Burger Kitchen and part of this development was to include a blog into their portfolio. I was amazed to see the amount of restaurants and other business within the food industry who had their own blogs, and how much of a powerful marketing tool they are to them. With more people than ever using the internet on a regular basis, and choosing to rely heavily on peer-reviews, the influence that a well constructed blog could have have on your restaurant reputation is greater than ever!

It is a great way for your restaurant to be open and honest with your consumers by showing them recipes, your supply chain, promotions, staff bios and that you share their love of great food as well! Research carried out by Park et al. (2007) shows that most topical blogs (such as a restaurant blog) us popular and alluring information to attract browsers. In addition to this, Krishnamurthy (2002) identified four categories typology of blogs: personal, topical, individual, and community.

Forage (2012)

Forage is a restaurant based in LA, and although their blogs are few are far between, it is still a great example of how to make an attractive restaurant blog. When they do get round to blogging, it usually includes mouthwatering photographs of the ingredients they use, which immediately make their readers hungry and wanting more!

Whilst researching for this blog, I came across this very informative news article by Abidemi Sanusi from the Guardian. She goes into great detail as to how to write a successful blog in order to promote your business. I’ll just summarise a few of the points she makes, although I pretty much agree with them all.

Write for your customers

Your blog is used by your your customers, so don’t bore them by continuously talking about yourself. It should aim to solve aim to provide a fresh insight into your restaurant, don’t overwhelm them, just be clear and concise and engage them with visual content.

Plan your content

Don’t just write about anything, you need to attract people to your page! Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a great way to find out key phrases your consumers are using to search for your restaurant field. You may choose to use these phrases in the title. This is a great way to increase traffic to your website, which is essentially SEO.

Frequency

Aim for a frequency that your restaurant can handle, maybe once a week. The key is consistency, and although the Forage blog above looks great, they simply don’t blog frequently enough, so you will lose the following you work so hard for.

Make it Shareable

Create links to other digital marketing platforms you current have in your portfolio. Make it easy for them to notice them as this is another great way to drive traffic to not only your blog, but to your restaurant as well.

If you’re stuck for ideas as to what to include in your blog, below are a few ideas courtesy of Matthew Sonnenshein who posted a blog for ‘gourmet marketing’. I have to say, it’s a great read, so why not give it a whirl by clicking on the link!

  • Promote healthy recipes, organic products or ways to cut calories.
  • Provide information on respected health and nutrition websites.
  • Link blog posts to local events like parades, concerts, charitable events, trade shows and conferences.
  • Produce a calendar of events, local guide or information on cooking classes.
  • Partner with noncompetitive neighboring businesses, farms, wineries, breweries or suppliers.
  • Interview a respected local or national food celebrity.
  • Review local, regional and national food products.
  • Post comments on other restaurant and food blogs.
  • Complement the blog with professional site design and a recognizable graphic theme.

Like any digital marketing platform, there are drawbacks to using a blog to promote your business. A blog requires regular updates, and can be time consuming, so make sure that by doing a blog it does effect your general running of your restaurant. Also, being too honest may not work in your favour, as Bernoff (2009) points out, it may lead to trust issues.

Finally, I’ll end with a quote from a book I found in the university library by Ryan & Jones (2009):

The blogosphere is the home of internet buzz. If something is worth talking about online it will be written about, commented upon and propagated through the blogosphere

References:

Bernoff, J. (2009). Blogs, Marketing and Trust. Marketing News43(2), 17.

Ryan, D. and Jones, C. (2009). Understanding digital marketing. London: Kogan Page.

Krishnamurthy, S. (2002). The multidimensionality of blog conversations: The virtual enactment of September 11. Paper presented at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoJR) International Conference, Internet Research 3.0, Maastricht, The Netherlands, October 13-16.

Park, D., Lee, J. and Han, I. (2007). The Effect of On-Line Consumer Reviews on Consumer Purchasing Intention: The Moderating Role of Involvement. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 11(4), pp.125-148.

The Best Way to Market Yourself is Online!

The other day my girlfriend came to me and said she wants more out of life. At first I thought “heeere we go…” but then she started talking about yoga and my first thought was quickly brushed aside. She has a huge passion for yoga and has been doing it for a number of years now, going to classes, teaching her friends and has even tried to get me involved! But now she wants to make a career out of it and spread the word of yoga to every corner of the globe. As I have already done a lot of work this year focusing on improving Gourmet Burger Kitchens social media presence, combined with this, I’ve been inspired to write this blog, as what better way to get noticed out there than to put yourself online?

So this post is essentially a tour around a few marketing tools online, aimed at anyone who is looking show the world their talents, inspire others, and more importantly, attract potential employers.

The first thought in everyones mind when looking for a new job is to find the ‘Careers’ page of the employer you really want to work for. Alternatively you may choose to simply plug the job you want into google and be forced to troll through all the different agencies to find your new job. But believe me, their are better ways to get noticed!

“Knowing what social channels…the audiences are using is vital to ensuring the long-term success of any social media strategy.” (Taylor, 2013).

YouTube is a great social media platform which allows the digital world to discover, watch and share your videos online. What’s more, is that it is the 2nd most-used search engine behind its parent company Google. It act as a “forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small” (Youtube, 2015).

Justin Bieber - YouTube Sensation
(YouTube: A video on how YouTube helped kickstart Justin Bieber’s music career)

 

As much as I’m not a fan of the guy, Justin Bieber’s raise to fame was single handedly down to YouTube. He posted a video of himself performing, which generated a phenomenal response from the music industry, resulting in him being signed to a record label. What a great success story!

Instagram is a social networking site which has a community of over 300million users. It enables people to post pictures and videos onto their page, and share their activities on a variety of other social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. It is primarily used on mobile devices, so it is a fantastic way to reach your followers whilst on the move. To find out more on how to get the most out of Instagram, take a read of this article.

Instagram Yoga Sensation
(Instagram: Laura Sykoria Yoga)

When researching for this blog, I came across Laura Sykoria’s Instagram page. With over 1 million followers, Laura has been a huge hit in the Instagram community, and is now a great inspiration for my girlfriend who like I said early, is looking to do something similar.

Twitter is all about sharing: sharing content, owned or secondary, commentary, opinions and observations on pretty much everything (Taylor, 2013). It is another online social networking tool which users are able to post 140 character updates or “tweets” of what going on in their lives. It can include links to other webpages and pictures of what they’ve been up to among other things. The followers of the user can then “retweet” (share) the tweet. But what really put Twitter in a league of their own is the introduction of the #hashtag to the social networking world as it enables twitter users and businesses to create trending topics, which is a great way to engage with followers.

(Twitter & Vine)
(Twitter & Vine)

Vine is essentially the video version of Twitter, and was in fact bought by them in 2012. It enables users to record and edit their six-second-long looping videos to which their followers can “revine” (share) them with their own followers. Vine, like Twitter is a great way to keep your followers updated on what you are doing as well as promoting your own personal interests.

Heres more food for thought – an article by the ‘Huffington Post‘ detailing 8 ways to successfully market yourself online using such platforms as those explained above.

Like anything in this world, social media marketing does however have it downsides. It can be a very time consuming activity to which the information you post is only visible for a short amount of time before a new post replace it. Also, the ‘Information Systems Audit and Control Association’ released a report in June 2010 ranking hijacking and the lack of control of user generated content as the biggest threat to those who use social media to market themselves or their business.

 

References

Online Resources:

Youtube (2015). About YouTube – YouTube. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/en-GB/ [Accessed 20 May 2015].

Journals:

Taylor, N. (2013). Choosing between social media platforms and understanding the markets they reach. Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, 3(9), pp. 283-291(9)

Why Do So Many Restaurants Have Their Own ‘mobile app’?

Throughout this year, I have noticed an increase in the amount of restaurants having there own ‘mobile app’. The aim of this blog is to understand what is behind this trend and to find out what benefits a ‘mobile app’ can have on restaurants.

The best place to start is probably to describe what a mobile app actually is. PC Magazine (2015) defines it as being “a software application that runs in a smartphone, tablet or other portable device.” With there being an option to create an app for almost anything, smartphone users can now read the news, see how many steps they’ve taken throughout the day, remember where they parked there car, or just kill time by playing ‘candy crush’ all day – the possibilities are endless!

Heres a few stats..

The Telegraph (2012) reported that there was an average of 701 apps released everyday throughout 2011 and at this moment in time Apple’s “App Store” alone has around 1.4 million apps available (Statista, 2015).This just goes to show that mobile apps are growing at an enormous rate, and businesses should look to include this tool within their marketing mix.

(Apple - App Store Icon)
(Apple – App Store Icon)

The restaurant industry is leading the trend when in comes to going mobile, heres a very interesting infographic to prove it.

Example: Gourmet Burger Kitchen

So far this year I have been trying to improve the digital marketing strategy for the premium burger chain ‘Gourmet Burger Kitchen’, of whom would be classed in the ‘Fast Casual’ sector in the infographic link above. For the purposes of this blog posting I will be focusing on GBK’s app to see what their app has to offer.

(GBK Mobile App)
(GBK Mobile App)

The GBK app was built to accompany their new look website back in 2012 with the aim to create a customer loyalty scheme. Loyalty should now be the driving force behind every businesses marketing strategy as outlined by Erhenberg (1988), who brought forward the concept of “Repeat-Buying”. The notion of creating a mobile app for a restaurant does exactly that as it encourages customers to use the app, and benefit from it through frequent use through the process explained below.

The app allows customers to locate their local outlet and view the menu via a check-in service. Loyalty points are then added to the customer’s personal account by purchasing a meal at one of their restaurants, and can be boosted by playing the app’s game and spreading the word across their personal social media channels. As soon as the customer gains a certain amount of loyalty points, it will equate to free food.

The former CEO, Alasdair Murdoch stated: “We know that now, more than ever, our customers are looking for value, as well as a fun, easy to use loyalty scheme that offers quick rewards. Our new loyalty app offers just that. It allows us to take a more personal approach, rewarding the most frequent customers with extra benefits” (Marketing Magazine, 2012).

Pros:

  • High percentage of the population use smartphones.
  • Higher level of user engagement (Bellman et al. 2011)
  • The advertising is more effective due to it being on your consumers personal device (Wang, 2006)
  • Creates a positive attitude towards the brand (Hutton & Rodnick, 2009)
  • Branded apps are perceived as “useful” to the users suggesting it could be the most powerful marketing tool yet (Bellman et al. 2011)

Cons:

  • App development can be expensive to your brand as they need to be made to suit each mobile platform (iPhone, Android, Windows etc.). Also the more functionality they have, the more expensive they become.
  • Mobile Apps require on-going care both as regard to fresh content and technological updates.
  • If they offer now benefit to you consumers, then they simply will not buy them.

So restaurant owners, as the old saying goes: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!

References

Online Journals:

Bellman, S., Potter, R., Treleaven-Hassard, S., Robinson, J. and Varan, D. (2011). The Effectiveness of Branded Mobile Phone Apps. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 25(4), pp.191-200.

Hutton, G. & Rodnick, S. (2009). Smartphone Opens up New Opportunities for Smart Marketing. Admap, 44(11), pp.22-24.

Wang, A. (2006). Advertising Engagement: A Driver of Message Involvement on Message Effects. J. Adv. Res., 46(4), p.355.

Is Email still an Effective Marketing Tool?

The main digital marketing tool that I have focused on throughout the year has been the use of social media platforms. They are without a doubt the current trend within this digital age, and I have solely focused on this method when carrying out my own digital marketing strategy. This led me to wonder whether the “traditional” email method still has a part to play in this social driven, Google powered world we now live in? This answer is yes! Many academics and practitioners still believe that email marketing is still the most effective method regarding digital marketing, so lets find out why.

Email is not dead!!
Email is not dead!!

How to get the most out of your Email Marketing campaign

Pavlov et al. (2008) state that email marketing is a legitimate, lucrative and widely used marketing tool. The word that stands out here is “lucrative”. According to a census carried out by E-Consultancy (2015) the revenue generated by email has increased proportionately by 28% in the last year. In recent years, the ROI that is generated from email marketing has reduced, but it is still ranked as the most profitable tool available to businesses. Pavlov et al. (2008) do go on to point out that it is in danger of being overrun by spam mail, which may be a contributing factor for this reduction, as well as the increased us of other marketing tools available.

The effectiveness of email is primarily because it is permission-based. The consumers on business’s email list have given the go-ahead to send them emails. This means that they’ve already bought in to the business and want to find out more. I have put together few measures businesses may consider when executing their email campaign:

1. Add a personal touch
Personalization can go a long way. On the whole, the research I have found suggests that recipients read the email for a longer period of time with emails included the recipients name than those that didn’t. It attracts their attention and makes then feel more valued as a customer. This doesn’t work for everyone however, so alternatively you can look at consumers previous purchases and offer them alternatives or add-ons, showing your appreciation for there previous purchases.

2. Write a “killer” subject line
It’s all well and good having a fancy, well-designed email, but recipients will not click on it unless the subject line looks interesting and worth their time. It should include enough information in order to entice them, but not too long that they lose interest straight away.

3. Clear call to action
There must be a point to the email. It must be clear to recipients as to what they need to do next. Each email must only include one call to action or else the recipient may become confused as to what you want from them.

4. Time of the Day
Believe it or not, but the time in which a business sends an email to their consumers has a huge effect on whether they chose to open it or not. The Quarterly Email Report by Experian (2015) suggests the best open rate was between 8pm to midnight. This is probably due to the fact that this is the time of day when most people are back from work and are ready to relax. In addition to this, research also shows that the weekend is the best time to send emails, as this is presumably where most people have more free time to check their emails.

Mobile is changing the game

It is suggested that the biggest change to face email is peoples increasing reliance on smartphones and other handheld devices. The email testing tool provider Litmus (2015) reported that 53% of all emails were opened on some sort of mobile device.

With this change, businesses need to make their emails compatible for mobile devices. The layout is critical; it needs to be easy on the eye of users so that they can take action within seconds. Campaign Monitor suggest 4 things to consider when creating an email compatible for mobile devices:

• Single-column layouts – Making it easier to read for users.
• Links – The links on the email should be bold and easy to click.
• Font Size – It needs to be big enough so users can read it and so you message can be put across clearly.
• Concise Message – The main point of the email must be concise and at the top of the email. Failure to do so may result in users disregarding the email. You must make it easy for the user!

Furthermore, here is a fantastic journal article that is definitely worth a read, highlighting the importance of email going mobile.

Email Marketing vs. Social Media Marketing

Davaney and Stein (2013) suggest that too many businesses are loosing out by forgetting the importance of email marketing. They stress the importance of incorporating both email and social media into your digital marketing strategy, as it is the most effective way to market your business. Simms Jenkins, CEO of BrightWave Marketing agrees with this, stating that each method offers different benefits to businesses. As explained above, email generates a better ROI, and as Jenkins stated, “on emails people want offers”. Whereas on social media users want to be “more touchy-feely with the brand…they want breaking news and updates”. Email is more aimed at targeting specific groups within your email list, whereas social media works best at engaging users and promoting a positive brand image. Therefore you simply cannot choose one or the other if you want to outperform your competitors in the digital marketing world.

Here’s a great article by Forbes, putting forward their own points on why email marketing is still better than social media marketing.

Concluding Comments

So there we have it, I was wrong to dismiss this continuous force that is the Email when carrying out my own digital marketing strategy and in the words of Stansberry (2014), “you should be focusing on email marketing in a big way. It doesn’t matter if you’re running a restaurant or a shoe store, it should be one key part of your marketing strategy.”

References:

Journal Articles

Pavlov, O., Melville, N. and Plice, R. (2008). Toward a sustainable email marketing infrastructure. Journal of Business Research, 61(11), pp.1191-1199.

Online Resources

E-consultancy, (2015). Email remains the best digital channel for ROI. [online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/64614-email-remains-the-best-digital-channel-for-roi/ [Accessed 17 May 2015].

Experian, (2015). Email Marketing Benchmark Study Q3 2014 | Experian Marketing Services. [online] Available at: http://www.experian.com/marketing-services/email-marketing-quarterly-benchmark-study-q3-2014.html [Accessed 16 May 2015].

Kaplan, M. (2015). Email Still Effective Marketing Tool?. [online] Available at: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/4050-Email-Still-Effective-Marketing-Tool- [Accessed 16 May 2015].

Stansberry, G. (2014). Why Email Is Still One of the Most Effective Marketing Tools Around. [Online] OPEN Forum. Available at: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/lets-make-2015-year-email-list/ [Accessed 16th May. 2015].

What effect does ‘User Generated Content’ have on the Restaurant Industry?

Overview

So far this year, I have mainly been focusing on the hospitality industry, primarily restaurants, and how the use of a well constructed and frequently updated social media campaign can ultimately benefit your business (Ashley & Tuten, 2014). It’s also worth mentioning that I’ve previously been employed in this sector and it is therefore an area of interest to me.

As we all should know by now, when it comes to a digital marketing campaign, there is an elephant in the room, you can either look after this elephant or simply watch it ruin your online presence right in front of your eyes. This is of course User Generated Content (UGC).

UGC websites have come to the forefront in recent years, with the rise of the likes of ‘TripAdvisor’ and ‘Yelp’, consumers are now able to have their own say on their experiences in various establishments up and down the country; guiding customers as to where is a good place to eat, and where to avoid.

The questions I therefore ask myself is:

Why is UGC of such importance to the Restaurant Industry?

The research carried out for the purposes of this blog made for an interesting read, so why not read on and see what your thoughts are on the topic.

 

Definition

An obvious way to start would be to define what User Generated Content (UGC) actually means. Cleary & Bloom (2011) refer to it as the media content created by members of the general public rather than by a paid professional. It essentially gives the opportunity for all consumers to communicate with and influence a mass audience. Daugherty et al. (2008) however point out that this was only possible due to the creation of the internet and Web 2.0 technologies including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TripAdvisor, among many others.

 

Why is UGC of such importance to the Restaurant Industry? 

All products and services offered by restaurants are intangible prior to purchase, and from a consumer’s point of view, before the Internet, there were very limited pre-purchase assessment opportunities for them to go by when deciding where to go out and eat. Therefore, consumers are increasingly choosing to look at UGC and the most recent eWOM trends online to evaluate the pre-purchase information available to them Wang (2011).

There are many reasons why consumers choose go dine out, for example a first date, meeting up with old friends or a family occasion. Consequently, there is a certain level of risk associated when making the decision and due to the intangibility of the products in the restaurant industry prior to purchase, UGC allows potential consumers to reduce the risk and gain an insight as to whether or not a restaurant will fulfill their expectations.

With this in mind, it is clear that UGC is of great importance to the restaurant industry, and should arguable be at the forefront of all restaurant manger’s marketing plan. It not only has a significant impact of consumer behavior, but also the revenue intake of each restaurant. The effect UGC has the revenue generated by restaurants was shown in a study carried out by Michael Luka (2011) from the Harvard Business School. His findings were based on figures generated by ‘Yelp’, and can be summarized into three statements:

  1. A one-star increase in ‘Yelp’ rating scale can cause a 5-9% increase in revenue.
  2. The star ratings have more of an impact on restaurant revenues than individual customer reviews.
  3. The more customer reviews a restaurant has, translates to a larger impact of restaurant revenues, either increasing or decreasing depending on the reviews.

As previously stated, it is now easier than ever for consumers to publish their reviews online in the form of UGC, with social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter proving to be the best tool to do so. In addition to this, the increase in those that own a smartphone gives consumers the ability to post UGC wherever and whenever they want. An example of just how much power UGC has on organizations was shown in 2010 with the well known clothing retailer, GAP, who had to scrap their new logo due to their Facebook and Twitter pages becoming inundated with negative comment regarding the change (Haigh & Wigley, 2015). Social media is therefore not only revolutionizing the way in which we communicate with each other, but also how we communicate with organizations, including restaurants. Below is a recent example of how a consumer chose to use Gourmet Burger Kitchen’s Twitter page to show just how unhappy they were:

 

Screen Shot 2015-05-29 at 15.53.19

 

This example not only highlights the negative side of UGC, where restaurants have little control over the feedback consumers post, but also highlights the positive side as they are able to find out what went wrong, and help ensure it doesn’t happen again. Such negative UGC as this can however have a negative effect on the brand image. This shows just how important it is for businesses, especially those in the hospitality industry, to constantly monitor what’s being said about them online, and how it may be worth having a specialized team to deal with their online reputation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as the internet simply doesn’t stop.

 

Concluding Comments

Within the world of business, there are clearly conflicting views when it comes to UGC. With UGC here to stay, not matter how much some businesses may hate it, they need to learn to love it. It is without a doubt that it has revolutionized the restaurant industry, giving small independent restaurants the opportunity to compete alongside large restaurant chains, both having marketing budgets at either end of the spectrum.

It has put the power back in the hands of the consumers, and restaurants cannot rely solely on their brand to bring in those hungry people anymore. Their online reputation is now the most important marketing tool to restaurants, and by ensuring they provide the best possible level of service and highest quality of food, means those high performing restaurants that were not getting noticed before, now can be. It is arguably a harder challenge for the large ‘well known’ chains whose flaws are now being easily exposed by consumers, but with constant monitoring of their online reputation, and by dealing with any issues consumers have in a professional and timely manner, they too can benefit from UGC as well.

Overall, those marketers working within the restaurant industry should act now to use UGC to constructively improve their restaurants, due to it being a fantastic opportunity for them to interact and engage with their consumers. I hope this blog posting has answered my initial question as well as showing the effect UGC has had on the restaurant industry as a whole.

 

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

References

Ashley, C. and Tuten, T. (2014). Creative Strategies in Social Media Marketing: An Exploratory Study of Branded Social Content and Consumer Engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1), pp.15-27.

Cleary, J. and Bloom, T. (2011). Gatekeeping at the Portal: An Analysis of Local Television Websites’ User-Generated Content. Electronic News, 5(2), pp.93-111.

Daugherty, T., Eastin, M. and Bright, L. (2008). Exploring Consumer Motivations for Creating User-Generated Content. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 8(2), pp.16-25.

Haigh, M. and Wigley, S. (2015). Examining the impact of negative, user-generated content on stakeholders. Corp Comm: An Int Jnl, 20(1), pp.63-75.

Luca, M. (n.d.). Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.Com. SSRN Journal

Hello world!

Hello,

My name’s Josh and this is my new blog. As part of my IT382-Digital Marketing module I will be exploring the ever growing world of Digital Marketing and how it is used effectively worldwide.

Josh.